Mumbai Police questions Aaditya Thackeray's aide in BMC Covid scam case

Last month, ED had conducted searches at 15 premises in the case, including those of Chavan and BMC’s then additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal.

Shiv Sena (UBT) secretary Suraj Chavan was questioned by a team of Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Monday in connection with a money laundering case relating to Covid-19 treatment centres set up by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Chavan is a close aide of former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Suraj Chavan (Hindustan Times)

The questioning comes days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday night arrested businessman Sujit Patkar, one of the four partners of the firm Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LHMS) which bagged a ₹38-crore civic contract to supply medical manpower to the Jumbo Covid Centres in Worli and Dahisar during the pandemic. A senior BMC health official, Dr Kishore Bisure, who headed the civic medical team at the Dahisar centre was also arrested in connection with the ED's money-laundering probe into the alleged Covid centres scam.

Last month, the ED had conducted searches at 15 premises in the case, including those of Patkar, Chavan and BMC’s then-additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal.

Patkar’s firm is accused of receiving around ₹31.84 crore from the BMC as part of the contract even though between 50 and 60 per cent of the medical staff at the centres, for which it had billed the civic body, were allegedly non-existent. Bisure had allegedly connived with the firm to approve its dubious bills related to manipulated attendance sheets of the employees at the Covid centres, and received a laptop, cash and funds in his driver’s account, the ED claimed.

Patkar had allegedly invested only ₹12,500 towards the firm’s incorporation in June 2020. The firm allegedly had no experience in providing medical services nor did it have adequate staff.

Look-out notice issued against BMC’s Jaiswal on ED alert

The BMC’s ex-additional municipal commissioner (AMC) and IAS officer Sanjeev Jaiswal, who is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged Jumbo Covid Centres scam, was not allowed to take a flight to Sri Lanka last week due to a Look Out Circular (LoC) issued against him on the agency’s alert.

Jaiswal had reportedly planned to go on a personal trip but had failed to give prior intimation to the ED, the agency’s sources said. The ED’s LoCs have been issued against several persons who are under its scanner in the case, and are being carried out at the country’s entry and exit points, including airports, to prevent/regulate the said persons’ exit out of the country, ED sources said.